Skydio’s Social Responsibility Program
Mira Marquez
2020 was a rollercoaster of a year no matter which way you look at it. At Skydio, employees experienced and watched as the year’s events unfolded only to ask, “What more can we do?” We are uniquely positioned to develop and work with amazing technology that will revolutionize the drone world with autonomy, so how can we do what we do best and help others even more? What does that even look like? How can we ensure there’s a long term impact? Our goal is to have a lasting impact that benefits future generations.
In July 2020 a handful of Skydio employees got together and started brainstorming what we could do. Our fields of expertise spread across multiple departments, our years of experience was all over the place, and our backgrounds vastly diversity. What we shared in common was our empathetic hearts, open ears, strong communication and our drive to create change. From those early conversations we created the Social Responsibility Program.
Using our products and competencies as a company, the Social Responsibility Program aims to engage with local, national, and international communities on humanitarian and wildlife conservation initiatives (as seen in our wildlife conservation blog post). We aim to bring awareness and resources promoting diversity and inclusion within Skydio, the greater tech community, and a lasting positive impact for future generations.
Our humanitarian efforts focus on diversity, inclusion, and education for underrepresented groups while our Wildlife Conservation efforts focus on endangered species and preservation of their surrounding habitats. We aim to support these endeavors through multiple initiatives.
- Providing educational resources to 501c3 non-profit organizations and educators who teach STEM or who are interested in developing drone education in their organization or classroom.
- Participate in demos, presentations, and Q&As about drones for elementary, middle, and high school students.
- Providing drone kit donations to 501c3 non-profit organizations and educators who are working to provide resources and programs that focus on diversity, inclusion, community, and education.
- Creating community groups and meetups for women in aviation and drones to network and discuss barriers and opportunities surrounding these fields.
- Work with wildlife reservations to assist in ways Skydio’s technology can preserve and monitor endangered species and their habitats.
In order to change the world, we must also change from within and grow. At Skydio, with the help of our new VP of People Operations, Jacqueline Sharma, we’ve started making those dreams of change a reality.
- By working with recruiting and the executive team to increase diversity.
- By facilitating the growth of an inclusive and socially aware component to our company culture through workshops, talks, events, and team building that strengthens our communication.
- By increasing public engagement and presence of Skydians, with emphasis on members from underrepresented communities, in conferences, webinars, blogs, podcasts, and media.
- By creating an internal program to elevate the number of Part 107 certified female pilots.
With enthusiasm, gusto, and a little grace we look forward to leading by example and hope to inspire others. If you or your organization knows of a community that would benefit from our Social Responsibility Program please fill out our interest form and we’ll be in touch.
